


Aurek-Besh Medley

by Lechatelierite



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron Series - Alexander Freed
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-05-20 19:21:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19383142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lechatelierite/pseuds/Lechatelierite
Summary: An Alphabet Squadron drabble collection. First: Hera receives an unexpected hug.





	1. Embrace [Yrica, Hera]

“I don’t know what they _want_ from me.”

Yrica Quell stood in the doorway of the meeting room. She had barely moved out of the way of the door’s attempt to close, instead stalling as soon as she saw Hera. Not a salute or an introduction, and these surprised Hera as much as the words did. Quell had let go of some of her formality, and Hera did not know whether this presaged growth or collapse.

“Sometimes, you need to help yourself before you can help others.” Hera herself had not sat down. She had called Quell in to talk about—well, all of it, and was that her first mistake? She breathed deep, untangling the personnel issues, the setback. She rested her hand on the back of one of the plastoid chairs.

“General,” Quell said, and raised her chin.

 _I don’t know how to do that,_ Hera heard.

Hera pressed her back against the chair, bracing herself with both hands. “Do you mind if I ask you something personal?”

“IT-O has it all recorded, sir.”

“I know, but it helps to hear it. You don’t have to answer.”

“Go ahead.” Quell looked at the floor. Remembering her squad’s problems?

“Did Major Keize think the same thing? That people needed to help themselves first?”

Quell met her eyes for a long time. Not for the first time, Hera found it both easy and almost impossible to imagine her among the _Ghost_ when Kanan had been alive. Would Quell have flown the _Phantom_ , following orders to the letter, no idea how to handle the kids?

“He said a squad is only as good as its leader,” Quell said.

_Close enough. It puts pressure on you, but it’s close enough._

“Thank you.” Hera nodded.

Quell walked toward one of the chairs. “I have some ideas about how we can fix this.”

 _This_ , Hera knew, meant both the squad’s interpersonal problems and their loss. “Good,” she began to say.

“I’m not armed,” Quell said, and folded against her shoulder.

Hera _had_ been braced, _had_ been reaching for the other woman’s hand to stop her from pulling a blaster. Quell was telling the truth, though; Hera knew it as she wrapped her arms around Quell’s waist. She hadn’t embraced someone in a long time, and warmth filled her fast on the heels of the fear. Quell pressed her face against Hera’s shoulder. She hadn’t breathed once, not since she started moving, and Hera could feel that tension in her back. Quell balled her hands into fists against Hera’s shoulder blades, just under her lekku.

“Okay,” Hera said, her own deep breath half relief and half surprise, and patted Quell’s hair. “You’re okay.”

A heaving breath, a relaxation of that iron-hard tension. Quell straightened up and would not meet her eyes. Hera shifted her hands to Quell’s shoulders for a moment, long enough, she hoped to express that she no longer feared an attack.

“Ideas,” Quell said, and started to take a seat.

Hera nodded. The last person she had hugged had been Jacen; funny how he and Quell left her feeling the same way, a sudden loss without their clammy heat. She straightened her sleeves for something to do with her hands, remembering when Jacen’s hand had been small enough to fit in her palm. No, she couldn’t tell Quell any of it. It wouldn’t be appropriate. And she’d have to report this to IT-O.

For now, she held on to the memory.

She took the seat beside Quell and folded her hands. “Tell me.”


	2. Best Forgotten [Yrica/Nath]

Shouts from a makeshift cantina, the slap of cards and hands against the table, a narrow strip of space seen through a high, horizontal window. The _Lodestar_ was celebrating. Quell suspected some of the festivities were Wyl and Chass’ ideas, holdovers from their squadrons. Last time there had been a celebration like this, she had been in a bacta tank. This time, the victory had been even more narrow, the celebration even more wild.

Quell drifted. Dancing felt too vulnerable, drinking too sad, leaving too cowardly. She worried at a callous on her pinky, result of too much time in a cramped simulator. Loneliness ate at her like a physical thing, like a nauseous sickness. The last thing she wanted to do was go back to her bunk, and the last thing she wanted to do was talk. She’d hit blood under the callous soon and have to leave because of it.

Nath Tensent appeared out of the crowd, hunched over.

Now there was a person who she could trust not to pity her.

He didn’t say anything at first, just followed her away from the crowd enough that she had an out before he gestured at the dancers. “They’ll be in fighting shape tomorrow.”

Now there was a person who didn’t trust a party. Quell scratched an itch on her chin. “I didn’t expect anything less.”

“You helping the enemy out?” His voice turned deeper, like he was settling in for a story. He held out a hand. The initial chill his words created faded as she realized a bead of blood had risen on her finger.

“Kriff, Tensent, don’t scare me like that.”

He gestured again.

She offered her hand. Neither of them had kept their gloves, and she saw the blood against his skin with the vividness of a dogfight. Maybe the loneliness did it, maybe the distant beat of the music; either way she was almost sure that she gripped his hand and raised both together. 

“You’re calmer than before,” he said, looking up at her from lidded eyes. “You mind?”

“No,” she said, and meant it, and felt the loneliness awaken into a burn when he kissed her hand. He was working almost all the time, needed the distraction —and at the same time as she hated the grease in his hair and the memory of their first meeting, she liked the shape of his face, the scratchy beard.

(She liked that she knew he didn’t care about her. There was no judgement left: it had all already been done.)

She pressed her opposite hand against his stomach and saw his eyes widen in surprise. She couldn’t tell if his bulk was muscle or fat, didn’t care. “Follow me,” she muttered, and “This never happened, tomorrow.”

He smiled with teeth while he let her pull him into the dark corridor.

“Who are you gonna pretend I am?” Tensent asked.

“Shut up.”

“Ma’am.”

When she kissed him he let go of her hand, as if one touch was enough; then for a while it was his hands on her jaw and hers bunched in his flightsuit, and far up on the wall, a sliver of stars.


End file.
